“So when are they going to move Jake Grafton?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I doubt that it will be any time soon. They are frying other fish. They have a long list of people to arrest and incarcerate. They are working on a list of people who have shot their mouths off on Facebook and other social media.”
“So there is no hurry,” Travis remarked.
“I wouldn’t say that,” she said. “The White House classified net is full of e-mails about this right-wing conspiracy, and Jake Grafton is near the head of the list. They’re manufacturing evidence, trying to decide the best way to spin it for the public. They’re going to try a dozen or so people to justify Soetoro’s decision to invoke martial law.”
“What about terrorism? All those jihadists Soetoro let in?”
“The FBI is having some difficulty finding a sufficient number. They have their hands on a lot of Soetoro’s domestic enemies, and Grafton, so…”
None of us had anything to say to that. If they got Grafton into a federal prison, not just a concentration camp, there was no way we could get him out without an army.
She let that soak into our beetle brains, and then said, “A snatch on the highway isn’t going to work. That was Tommy’s idea, I think.”
I nodded.
“You were also talking about a diversion, Tommy, and I decided the best one was probably to kill the power grid in the northeastern United States.”
Willis Coffee’s eyes bulged. Travis whistled. I wasn’t surprised, knowing as I did how Sarah’s mind worked. This was a woman who arranged for a gang of Russian ex-sailors to steal an American attack submarine a few years ago. When Sarah Houston set out to do something, she didn’t believe in half measures.
“Holy damn,” Willie the Wire said.
“So how in the world are we going to do that?” Willis Coffee demanded.
“We don’t have any explosives, and we can’t easily lay hands on any,” Travis Clay pointed out. “Even if we had a truckload, we can’t run around the countryside blowing up a hundred substations.”
“Maybe drop a hair dryer in the bathtub,” Willie the Wire suggested.
Sarah Houston went on as if she hadn’t heard them. “The power grid is stretched to the max in August in the Northeast. It operates at one hundred percent of capacity much of the time running air conditioners and the like. The power companies use computer programs to automatically feed power around problem spots to prevent taking down the net. Computers are cheaper than new power-generation plants. They have hardened that computer system somewhat over the last few years in response to the perceived terrorist threat, but it is still vulnerable. I can put some code into the programs that will make the system default into the problems, not away from them, and that will quickly overload the system and take it down. All over the Northeast. From Cleveland to Maine and down to Cincinnati and Richmond.”
We sat in silence digesting that. Finally Willis asked the obvious question. “How are we going to create problems?”
“We are going to have to knock out some key transformers and sub stations. I have compiled a short list of the most critical ones.”
He was a sucker. “So how are we going to do that?”
“With explosives,” Sarah said matter-of-factly. “Shouldn’t take a whole lot, but it will take some. As you may know, most of the federal agencies are stockpiling ammunition at warehouses in secret locations to use against the right-wing conspiracy, or if the locals get rowdy. Also in those warehouses are modest stocks of C-4 and enough tear gas to gas everyone east of the Mississippi. I made a list of the four closest warehouses. One of them is in Leesburg, a huge facility FEMA leased from Walmart.”
“So you want us to start by breaking into a warehouse?”
“If you want to give Barry Soetoro a crisis to worry about besides chasing you and Jake Grafton, you are going to have to make it something that really gets his attention.”
“Texas might be enough,” Travis Clay opined.
“You think?”
“Uh, no.”
Willis Coffee said, “Maybe killing the power grid is overkill. Modern cities can’t work without electricity. Windows won’t open, water pumps won’t work, commodes won’t flush, elevators won’t work, lights won’t work, medical equipment won’t work, refrigerators won’t work, microwaves won’t work. Depending on how long the power stays off, some people could starve or die of heat exhaustion or dehydration.”
That’s when I got into the conversation. “Barry Soetoro has torn up the Constitution. He’s going to try a dozen innocent men for a crime he’s invented. He’s declared war on America. Texas has taken up the gauntlet. Now we must decide if we are willing to fight for America and let the chips fall where they may, or whether we would rather just pull our heads down, tuck our tails between our legs, and let Soetoro and Martin Wynette kill anyone they want. They are going to whack Texas hard. They are going to whack Jake Grafton. And believe me, given half a chance they’ll whack us.”
They sat staring at each other.
“I was listening to the president on the radio while I drove down here,” Sarah Houston said. “I would rather crawl into a hole out of the line of fire, but the fact is we have reached the point in America when it is time to choose a side.”
“Jeez,” Travis said softly. “So we have to burgle a government warehouse, blow up some power substations, and then break into Camp Dawson and snatch Grafton from under the noses of God knows how many troops and feds. You and your little projects, Tommy.”
“Yep,” I said heartily. “Gotta choose sides and smell armpits, guys. What say we all go to dinner and think this over before the power goes out. I’m buying.”
Willie Varner nearly broke his leg hopping off his stool.
We went to a white-tablecloth restaurant, even though the only one of our group dressed for it was Sarah. She led the way inside and favored the maître d’ with a smile, so we were seated in a corner.
“Sorta like the last supper,” Willie opined, then asked the waiter, “What’s the most expensive Scotch you have on your shelf?”
It was something I’d never heard of.
“I’ll take a double of that, neat,” my lock shop partner told the waiter, and smiled at me. Sarah ordered a bottle of eighty-four-dollar wine, and my two covert warriors ordered draft beers. I ordered a bourbon on the rocks.
All of us had the sense not to even whisper about our planned operation to spring Grafton, or any of the other mayhem we had planned. We talked about riots and politics and whether Texas could win.
After they had sipped their drinks and studied the menu, Willie ordered the most expensive steak, and Willis Coffee and Travis Clay did the same. I shrugged and ordered one too. Sarah took her time and ordered a piece of bare salmon with some lemon wedges and a small salad.
The bill was going to be a whopper, but I wasn’t worried. I planned to use my CIA credit card to pay for it. I figured it would be a week or so until the clerks at Langley got around to turning the card off, and anyway, they could just deduct the amount from my severance pay, which I doubted I would ever get.
I was so tense the liquor hit my stomach hard. I began to feel the glow down there instantly. I sat back in my chair, smiled vacuously, and tried to relax. Some of us were almost certainly going to be dead soon. I wondered if one of them would be me.
When Willie Varner’s steak came, it was still bloody. Travis pointed to it and said, “A good vet could have saved that cow.”
“Thank God he didn’t,” Willie said, and stuffed a piece in his mouth.